Data show no sign of methane boost from thawing permafrost

Carbon dioxide levels rising, though, in response to warming around Alaska’s North Slope

THAWING OUT Emissions of carbon dioxide, but not methane, having risen alongside warming temperatures in a region of northern Alaska, according to an analysis of atmospheric measurements made at this research station in Barrow.

NOAA

SAN FRANCISCO — One climate doomsday scenario can be downgraded, new research suggests.

Some scientists feared that Arctic warming would unleash large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, worsening global warming. “The ticking time bomb of methane has clearly not manifested itself yet,” said study coauthor Colm Sweeney, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder. Emissions of carbon dioxide — a less potent greenhouse gas — did increase over that period, the researchers found.

The CO2 rise “is

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